I always knew I would lead a creative life. My days were filled with playing pretend, making up songs, learning to knit and sew and bake.
As I grew older, my passions honed in on the performing arts. I loved to dance and sing and act, any excuse to be on a stage creating a a beautiful world around me. I performed in professional productions with the Portland Opera and Oregon Ballet Theater, and made my Carnegie Hall debut in second grade with the Portland Children’s Chorale. I studied opera when friends around me were listening to Brittany Spears, took tap and jazz instead of PE, and felt like I knew exactly what I would do with my life.
In college, I studied every facet of classical music, was the lead in every opera and a handful of musicals, and got accepted into the prestigious Shepherd School of Music at Rice University for graduate school. I was on track.
Then something changed.
Something changed in me as I worked toward my Masters. My love of music was still there, but I kept feeling like something was missing. I knew in my soul art was important, that creating something beautiful was what made our culture worth preserving. But after each performance, I left feeling ever so slightly less fulfilled. Friends from college were becoming doctors and lawyers, starting non-profits and researching ways to prevent climate change. When I compared the impact of their work to mine, it felt frivolous to sing music written by long dead white men to an ever shrinking audience.
As graduate school came to a close, my classmates and I began taking the next steps towards a full operatic career, applying for young artist programs and auditioning for smaller companies around the world, and of course, planning our moves to New York, the hub of the opera world in the US. But the tiny nagging doubt in the back of my mind was getting harder to ignore.
Still, I moved into my tiny Astoria walkup with an unknown craigslist roommate, auditioned every chance I could and performed as often as people would let me, usually without pay, all while working the 4am shift at Starbucks every day. I was living the clichéd bohemian life that meant you were a true artist. And even though singing still brought me the greatest joy in my life, each performance was tinged with that little voice saying that nothing I was doing was important.
three years later...
Fast forward three years. I moved to Washington, DC and was singing with several smaller opera companies in the area, trying to convince myself that my work had meaning and finding it more and more difficult to believe it. My boyfriend (now husband) was finishing culinary school and had started his own small catering company, Eat & Smile Catering. As he started to build his website, he would make us these stunning, elaborate dinners, taking a photo with his point and shoot digital camera, to less than stellar results.
When the photos of the third meal were also unusable, I decided to give it a go. I pulled out my 1995 Minolta SLR that I’d used all of seven times, stuck a roll of film in the back, and shot off all 24 frames. The next day, I anxiously awaited the prints from the local camera store hoping there would at least be one or two for him to use so his site could go live.
The attendant handed me the white envelope and CD of digital files, and I nervously took them both, thanking him as I left the store. Sitting on a bench just outside, I slid the stack of 4x6s out of the envelope and started flipping through them. Shot after shot was exactly what I had hoped. I was stunned, but also excited. Why had this one turned out like this, while that one turned out like that? I was intensely curious, and couldn’t wait to learn more.
I nervously took the photos
from the attendant...
After several months of reading every book and blog I could find on photography, I enrolled in photography school. I still thought of myself as an opera singer with a photography hobby, but one that I found endlessly fascinating. While those around me were shooting digital, I was still drawn to the textures, colors, and pace of film photography, taking every darkroom class I could, and constantly experimenting with my growing collection of vintage film cameras.
Documenting that day changed everything
It was during school that my first wedding client hired me, and documenting that day changed everything.
For the first time in my life, I was doing something that felt like it truly mattered. Each image was a memory to be treasured by this couple for the rest of their lives. My photography work had more meaning for these two people than any performance I had given before.
As I started gaining more and more wedding clients, my confidence grew. I stopped posing couples the way I had been taught in school, and started using my experiences on stage to direct more natural interactions that I could capture. With each image, I found myself striving to create beauty that was infused with authenticity and meaning. My goal was to capture my clients’ personalities, what made them unique, and their love for one another.
Years passed and my wedding photography business grew. I loved every aspect of wedding photography and was blessed by amazing clients that I connected with deeply. In spite of my complete lack of interest in marketing, I was able to grow my business every year from referrals alone. And then, I had my first child.
And everything changed, all over again.
I had wanted to be a mother my entire life, and now I was. Holding this tiny human, I was
constantly struck by how quickly he was
changing. Every day brought a new expression, a new sound, a new skill. I blinked and he was pushing up, blinked again and he was rolling over. In a heartbeat he was walking, and another brought his first words. In those early hard days, someone said to me, “the days are long, but the years are short”. At the time it seemed like nonsense, but by his first birthday, I knew exactly what she meant. The tiniest, quietest moments were by far the most meaningful.
It’s these moments that I want to remember as a parent. The everyday joys, the small acts of
comfort and kindness, and the love that’s at the foundation of it all. Thinking back to my strongest memories from my own childhood, they all center around the photographs that were taken, and my most cherished ones aren’t the birthdays or the adventures. They’re riding a bike down my street, or playing in the garden with my dolls. The highlights are wonderful, but the everyday is what I truly cherish.
And being able to capture these memories for my clients is the most meaningful thing I can think of.
That's what truly matters.
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I've been obsessed with capturing images since I was a little girl. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur? Corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur.
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I've been obsessed with capturing images since I was a little girl. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur? Corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur.
(202) 285.3944
hello@alexandrafriendlyphotography.com
